Learn
and research amateur radio, science, chemistry, biology, physics, math,
astronomy, electronics, and much more. 101science.com is the internet
science PORTAL to more than 20,000 science sites. This site is FREE!

THEN: VERY IMPORTANT!! Use
you browser's "Find on this page" capability to search for words on a
page.
Usually Ctrl + F will work.

NOTE: The
following WWW links on this page will take you directly to the various web site
pages. Your browser URL address line will tell you the origin of the site.

INTRODUCTION:You
can learn more about amateur radio at the American
Radio Relay League web site. Want to know what this HAM radio
stuff is all about in plain language? Then be sure to check the GETTING
STARTED page. It includes information on how to become an FCC
licensed amateur radio operator. For specific licensing information click HERE.
Amateur radio as a hobby has many different aspects. This is one of the
things that makes amateur radio so wonderful. There are a variety of
activities for everyone; men, women, and boys and girls.

STUDY AND GET YOUR LICENSE - EASILY!:
It has never been easier to get a HAM license. Just study the question pools and take sample tests. When you are ready for the real thing find a local radio club that gives the real FCC test.

NOTE: When you first run the MorseCat program be sure to read the help file by pressing
HELP then the "Overview". Also, on the program you will see "New
Characters" followed by some random letters. Click on these letters
one at a time to learn them. You will see the letter and hear what it
sounds like in Morse code.

After you get your FCC amateur radio license you will need some
equipment. While the best way to get started is to build your first
station however many operators buy everything. What radio should you
buy? Click
HERE for some more ARRL help. There are the five major equipment manufacturers of
amateur radio equipment:

Equipment from any of the
major manufactures will meet your needs but go to your local ham radio dealer
and try them out. Good dealers will have new equipment set up and running
so you can twist the dials and try the various features live for
yourself. Check out your local amateur radio clubs and ask other hams
what equipment they are using and why they chose it and how they like it.
You can also check back issues of QST for equipment reviews. Click HERE for
list of ARRL QST equipment reviews.

It
is important to have a back up station ready for
portable/mobile/or remote use. The picture below
illustrates only one possible way to configure your station for
immediate portable use. This station has a built in AC power
supply, power pole strip, antenna tuner, HF through 2 meters,
digital modem, etc. I use it everyday as my regular station so I
know it is all working and ready to go. On the left side
are antenna connectors so it is fast and easy to
disconnect. If I want to use battery power it is simply a
matter of connecting a battery to the power pole strip also on
the left side. The left side also has a switched AC power
strip, all ready to go. The drawer at the bottom holds
paper, pencils, radio manuals, and small 12 volt
lights.

In the best spirit of amateur radio, the producer and speaker grant parties
the right to publicly show the video, but only when money is not charged
to view it and not for broadcast. All other rights to the copyrighted
material are retained.

ANTENNA SECTION

ANTENNA - wavelength calculator.
Enter operating frequency and then click the
full wavelength (WL) or 1/2 or 1/4 wavelength button to see the antenna length
required.

Amateur radio operators must
understand basic electronics. The more you understand about basic
electricity and basic electronics the more fun you will have.

First; get a good understanding of basic electricity.
When you have a good background in electricity you can move on to learning
about electronics. Electronics puts a knowledge electricity to useful
work. Electronics applies electrical current flow to circuits that
include current and voltage amplifiers. The amplifiers can be
constructed from glass "tubes" containing metal elements, or transistors, or integrated circuits. A circuit containing wire
conductors, resistors, capacitors, inductors and amplifiers can be configured
in many ways to build various electronic circuits like oscillators, digital
logic circuits, computer circuits, and much more. An oscillator by the
way is just an amplifier with some of the output fed back into the input.
Sounds like a perpetual motion machine but it isn't as the amplifiers power
supply is providing the additional energy that is lost in the circuit.

NEW!!
THE BEST FREE ELECTRONICS COURSE ON THE INTERNET. CLICK >HERE!!!!

UI-view32UI-VIEW http://www.apritch.myby.co.uk/uiv32.htmNote: Be sure to download the National Weather Service county map
shapes so you will have NWS alerts and warnings show up on your APRS
maps in real time!Listen
to an interview of Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, Author of APRS.

How
to set
up an HP Z3801A GPS Satellite Receiver as a Station Time and Frequency Standard

After
purchasing a surplus HP Z3801A, it was a challenge getting it to work.Below is a
short checklist of steps that will get your Z2801A running fast. I had to
learn the hard way and you can now take advantage of this information.

1.
You must convert the RS-422 output to RS-232 in order for your computer to talk
to the receiver. You can find excellent instructions here. http://www.ad6a.com/Z3801A.html
Make your own RS-232 cable using only the three pins in the instructions.
Do not try to use a ready made cable or commercial converters - they won't
work. The RX and TX connection must be reversed on the PC side so be sure
to follow the pin-outs carefully.

2.
You must have a stable 48 volt DC 1A metered power supply. It would be
helpful to be able to crank the voltage up to 50 volts initially while the
oscillator oven warms up. When the current draw drops to around .4 amps
you can then set the voltage as close to 48 volts as possible. The power
connector on the rear of the receiver has the positive voltage connection on the
top.

3.
Connect your new RS-232 cable to the receiver and computer Serial COM
port. Set the computers COM port to: 19200 Baud, Data Bits 7, Stop
bit 1, Parity to ODD, No flow Control. Download the free SatStat
program. HP Satstat
software. Set the software's COM setting as stated above using the
appropriate COM port. Set the LAT and LONG as close as you can to your current
location. This is VERY important. Otherwise it may take the receiver
hours or more likely days to derive this information from the satellites.
Remember this is relatively old GPS technology and the reason the unit is
surplus. Set the
software to the SURVEY mode. Go away for a couple hours and let the
receiver do it's thing. You can find the information on all these steps in
the software help files. Also be sure to read all the information
here. http://www.realhamradio.com/GPS_Frequency_Standard.htm

4. If
you finally get a green GPS lock light your done. Just let the receiver stabilize
for several days. You really should get the professional software from Dave,
AD6a http://www.realhamradio.com/gpscon.htm
It is not free but it will make running your receiver a FUN project.

5.
When your finished, take a look at my receivers output and compare it with
yours. They should be similar. http://www.101science.com/gpsstat.htm
The graph show the oscillator correction voltage, the map shows the current GPS
satellites being tracked, and the other panel technical data about the receiver.

Notes:
See, nothing to it. I played with the receiver for weeks (well, I confess,
months) until I finally decided to try the RS-232 connector conversion. Prior to
that time I thought I could get it running by just turning it on so I could use
the 10 Mhz output. But it never got a GPS lock and the oscillator will
drift without GPS corrections. So much for the easy way - didn't work. You
must do the conversion and load the software to get it to work.

DOWNLOAD
THE ARRL MOVIE,
"Amateur Radio Today".
Narrated by former CBS news anchorman Walter Cronkite, KB2GSD, Amateur Radio
Today showcases the public service contributions made by hams throughout the
country.
(copyright ARRL 2003, Link Permission granted by ARRL,
3/28/03, not for broadcast.)

The
new five-channel 60-meter amateur allocation becomes available to US
Amateur Radio operators at midnight (12:00 AM) local time on July 3.
The local time designation means that amateurs in the US territory of
Guam likely will be the first to get a crack at the new band.

The
FCC has granted amateurs use of five 2.8 kHz-wide channels with
center frequencies of 5332, 5348, 5368, 5373 and 5405 kHz. The
channels will be available to General and higher class licensees. The
only permitted mode will be upper-sideband USB phone, and 50 W ERP is
the maximum power allowed.
Users of the 60-meter channels should set their carrier frequency1.5
kHz lower than the channel center frequency. ARRL suggests
restricting transmitted audio bandwidth to 200 Hz on the low end
and2800 Hz on the high end for a total bandwidth of 2.6 kHz. ARRL
recommends that amateurs considering modifying existing amateur
equipment for operation on 60 meters contact the equipment's
manufacturer for advice.

Notes:
1)
The above listed FM simplex frequencies are on a 15 Khz matrix, which
is the closest spacing recommended when FM radio transmitters are set with a maximum
audio
deviation of 5.0 Khz. Operation on frequencies with a closer spacing
than
15 Khz will cause adjacent channel interference problems with the
frequencies on each side. Interference
will be caused by operation on the 5 Khz and 10 Khz channels between
the above listed simplex frequencies or near to repeater inputs or
outputs.

2) *
146.400 (optional input for 147.00), 146.430 (input for
147.030) and 146.460 (input for 147.060) are sometimes used as inputs to 147.000, 147.030 and 147.060
Mhz repeaters instead of the frequency 600 Khz above the repeater
output. Be sure and check for local repeater input use of these
frequencies before operating FM
simplex on these frequencies in the State of Minnesota.

3) Digital modes (Packet radio)
should
not use the FM voice simplex frequencies listed above as wider spacing (20 Khz recommended)
is needed between adjacent frequencies for packet radio use.
A 20 Khz spacing matrix of frequencies near to 145.010 Mhz and 145.610
Mhz is available for packet..

222
Mhz (222-224 Mhz,
sometimes called 1 1/4
meter band)

222.350
Mhz is the National FM simplex calling frequency. A 20 Khz spacing matrix is used on this band.
Other frequencies in the 223.600 to 223.850 Mhz range are also
used for FM simplex.

440
Mhz (420-450 Mhz,
sometimes called 70 cm band)

446.000
Mhz is the National FM simplex calling frequency. A 25 Khz
spacing matrix is used on this band. Because of the short range of FM
simplex on 440 Mhz, no
other simplex
frequencies are specifically identified on this band. . If
duplex cross-banding is to be done on the 440 Mhz band, the frequencies of 445.975 and 446.025 Mhz
are recommended for such operations in Minnesota. The use of other
445
and 446 Mhz frequencies
is not recommended as these frequencies are used quite extensively in Minnesota for Auxiliary
or Control Links for the repeater and remote base systems now
in operation

UPPER
UHF BANDS

900
Mhz FM
Simplex identified in the 927.00 to 928.00 Mhz range but no specific
calling channel is identified.

1.2
Ghz . 1294.50
Mhz is the National FM calling frequency on this band.

1294.00
to 1295.000 Mhz is
identified as the FM
Simplex operation area in this band.

A
reader from Stone Mountain, GA USA
This is the best ever issue of the annual ARRL Handbook. With more projects to
complete at home than in many years. DSP is also covered in more depth than
ever. Get up to date on the latest, keep fresh on the past, and have fun with
amateur radio with your new 2003 ARRL Handbook.

NOTE: When you first run the MorseCat program be sure to read the help file by pressing
HELP then the "Overview". Also, on the program you will see "New
Characters" followed by some random letters. Click on these letters
one at a time to learn them. You will see the letter and hear what it
sounds like in Morse code.

CW traffic
handling: The
prosign separates the parts of the
address. separates the adress from the
text and the text from the signature.
marks end of message; this is followed by B if there is another message to
follow, by N if this is the only or last message. It is customary to copy the
preamble, parts of the address, text and signature on separate lines.

The
new wave in sending and receiving images is DIGITAL. Images are not
painted on the screen like analog SSTV but are sent as a digital file.
Errors are automatically corrected if possible and high quality color images are
the result. Transmit any digital file with Digtrx.

NAVTEX (commercial) (USB, examples)
The NAVTEX frequencies are 518 et 490 Khz. The user will set their transceiver on USB at 517 or 489 Khz. The transmissions are done at fixed time, for example for NITON (GB): 7h00 and 19h00 UTC on 518 Khz in english, 5h20 and 17h20 on 490 Khz in english, 7h10 and 19h10 on 490 Khz in french.

High frequency (HF) radio communications depends upon propagation that is
related to sun spot activity. Get the best HF propagation software
available for FREE by downloading HFWIN16 or HFWIN32 HERE (VOACAP).
(http://elbert.its.bldrdoc.gov/hf.html)
The program of primary interest to you is VOACAP. To find out your exact transmitting
latitude and longitude and that of the receiving station of interest just enter
the callsigns into Buckmaster. (http://www.buck.com/cgi-bin/do_hamcall)
The location information is near the
middle of the page. Current and past solar data including Sun Spot
Numbers (SSN) ARE needed for propagation analysis. A daily sun spot
report from www.sunspotcycle.com. Also check the NOAA
SPACE WEATHER OUTLOOK ADVISORIES
for latest radio blackout reports. Now you have all the information needed to run a quality point-to-point propagation
analysis between any two points on earth for any frequency and any dates. VOACAP is a large program and very sophisticated. It will take you
awhile to setup the program and get familiar with the parameters. It is
fairly easy however and within a few minutes you will be viewing color graphs
of various propagation probabilities between your two points of interest.
Also, be sure to print a copy of the UTC time
conversion chart to help you convert UTC time to your local time zone to
help you read and interpret the propagation graphs. ( My favorite is the
MUFday graph.)

There are several active amateur radio satellites.
(http://www.amsat.org/amsat/sats/n7hpr/satsum.html) This mode of can provide
hours of fun and a real sense of accomplishment. You can find a lot of
information at the AMSAT site including important
information concerning the upcoming 3D AMSAT satellite
project that will revolutionize amateur radio satellite work.

Here is a basic summary of satellite status. The table that follows
this status is a summary of
operational satellites that are or were recently popular. These tables
lists only OSCAR satellites.

Operational

AO-51, UO-22, AO-27, FO-29, GO-32, SO-41,
MO-46, SO-50,
NO-45, ARISS

Semi-Operational*

AO-7, AO-10, UO-11, RS-15, AO-16, LO-19, FO-20,
NO-44

Non-Operational

UO-14, IO-26, SO-33, AO-40, SO-42, AO-49

Future Launch

VUSat (Hamsat)

Unknown (Researching)

AMSAT-OSCAR 51 (Echo
or AO-51)

Analog Uplink

145.920 MHz FM

Analog Downlink

435.225 MHz FM

Digital Uplink

145.860 MHz 9600 bps, AX.25

Digital Downlink

435.150 MHz 9600 bps, AX.25

Launch

June 29, 2004

Status: Operational - Commissioning
Amsat-OSCAR 51 or Echo as it is more commonly known is a
FM satellite carrying 4 VHF receivers, 2 UHF transmitters, a
multimode receiver and a 2400MHz transmitter. It can handle voice and FSK
data up to 76.8Kbps. Echo was launched into a low, sun-synchronous polar
orbit approximately 850 km high. See Echo Project Status for additional
information about Echo and scheduling of various modes of operational.

Now you know where the satellites are and how to listen to them. Click ARRL
HERE for information
setting up your own satellite station. Satellite software needs to
know where you are and needs it in decimal form rather than degrees and
minutes. Here is a LINK
(http://tiger.census.gov/cgi-bin/mapbrowse-tbl) where you can find your location. Scroll down to
the bottom of the page and enter you zip code. Then center the map and zoom
in on your location. The page will indicate your latitude and
longitude. If you have your location in degrees and minutes you can
convert it to decimal degrees with the utility below.

PI Filter Designer is a simple 3 element 50 ohm input and output impedance pi
filter designing application.
Style: GUI , File size: 47K , zipped 22K.
This program allows the user to design simple lowpass filters by selecting
from a variety of standard capacitor values either empirically or to suit what
you have on hand. The filter 3 dB cutoff frequency and required L1 inductance
are automatically calculated and displayed. In addition, the user may select
an additional capacitor value to put in parallel with both caps C1 and C2. In
this app XL = XC = 50 ohms impedance. No other impedances can be calculated
with this program.Current Version is 1/14/99Download the pifilter.zip
file